I usually keep a watchful eye on advice columns, especially “The Ethicist,” Carolyn Hax and a few others, but have been a bit lax of late. Thus I missed this astounding letter sent to “Ask Amy,” which was bought to my attention by loyal reader and frequent commenter Jeff.
Hold on to your heads or erect signs nearby warning others that they are in a potential head-explosion zone…
Dear Amy: Four months before my daughter’s wedding, she told me that her uncle (my brother, “Dave”) would make her feel unsafe if he was a guest. She asked me not to invite him. My daughter is very politically progressive, as are many of her friends, and although she and Dave have always had a good relationship (I thought), he is a conservative voter and has supported candidates we all abhor.
Dave has always been very nice, so my daughter’s request surprised me. I wrote Dave a very nice note, telling him that we would not be comfortable with him at the wedding and that he would not be invited. Dave did not respond and did not attend. Afterward, I sent him a card and pictures from the wedding, all in an effort to make him feel like he was not being totally left out.
I have not heard from Dave since then. When my siblings found out what I had done they were angry with me. That is just one problem. Another problem is that Dave has not sent my daughter and son-in-law a wedding gift.
In the past, Dave has given family members wedding checks in excess of $1,000. She says she was counting on receiving the same type of gift. My husband says I should drop it – but I can’t. Dave’s behavior is upsetting and embarrassing to me.
How can I get my brother to recognize and change his petty behavior? Please don’t tell me that I’m the one who started this by not inviting my brother to the wedding. After all, he’s a grown man, while my daughter is young and just starting out.
It was signed “Angry in Philadelphia.”
I’d suspect this was a hoax, except that I know people who are only slightly more crippled ethics alarms-wise than this mother-daughter tag team. To just check off the ethics fouls and flashing neon signs in the letter:
- The daughter doesn’t feel “safe” around a loving family member because he doesn’t agree with her political positions. This is the mark of a progressive-poisoned mind. His political beliefs are none of her business unless he attempts to impose them on her.
- The mother similarly “abhors” what a rational person would respectfully disagree with. What do you want to bet that what she abhors is Donald Trump?
- If Dave has always been nice, as she says, then her duty was to sit her daughter down and tell her she was being an asshole, and to knock it off. She should have also explained why “feeling unsafe” around people you disagree with is absurd, and that if the daughter wasn’t paying for the wedding and reception, she didn’t have standing to create a family breach because of her intolerant delusions.
- Instead, she dutifully kicked her brother in his metaphorical teeth, a sibling betrayal. He should be saluted for simply not attending and not telling his sister off. Or maybe he’s a weenie and accustomed to being a doormat to an abusive sister.
- The daughter was obligated to do the teeth-kicking anyway. She’s a jerk, but her mother obviously has allowed her to be a jerk, and is enabling her once again.
- “I have not heard from Dave since then” Huh! What a mystery. Out of the blue, his niece and his sister tell him he’s persona non grata based on nothing whatsoever, and he’s taking it personally! Go figure…
- Never mind: Mom’s Bridezilla wants her thousand dollar check, and Mom thinks it’s petty for Dave to withhold it. Now we know why the daughter is the way she is.
- The last sentence is a lulu. Unless the letter-writer is trafficking in child brides, the daughter is also an adult, and should be held to no lesser standards of conduct than her uncle or anyone else. But with a an ethically inert role model like her mother, it’s no wonder she has the ethics alarms of a 9-year-old.
Amy, being a competent advice columnist and not clinically insane, properly chastised “Angry” and wrote that the only one n the scenario who had acted appropriately was Uncle Dave. That conclusion was easy. What I was left pondering is how many monsters like “Angry” and Little Angry are out there. How do they get this way? What makes them think it is now “safe” to proclaim their assholery in public? How many people read this letter and thought, “Boy, that MAGA-supporting uncle is such a cheap jerk!” How many people like this can society include and still function?
And what can we do about them?
[Note: I searched everywhere for a short (less than a minute) video clip of Kevin McCarthy screaming “They’re here!” from either version of “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” There isn’t one, and there should be. If someone knows how to create one for YouTube, I’ll add it immediately to the Ethics Alarms Clip Archive for future use.]
Ethics Alarms 
Where do they come from? Angry Junior has been taught in all her schooling and now by her HR superiors that it is her duty to “call out” any behavior deemed unacceptable by our betters. Respect for one’s elders is only cute and quaint and acceptable in non-American cultures.
Here’s one but I’m not sure if it meets all of your criteria. It’s only 37 seconds.
Good enough! I’d love one with just the last part and without the title, but still: thanks!
Perhaps this is better?
I like “You’re next!” even better than “They’re here already!”
This very much seems like a fake letter. The writer seems like the Strawman someone on the right would put together.
Anyway, this line got me: “ After all, he’s a grown man, while my daughter is young and just starting out.”
There is no better time than when you are just starting out to learn that being as asshole to someone may influence their conduct. Unfortunately, it is a message she should have learned sooner.
-Jut
I thought it might be a fake letter. Then I started reading some of the tweets about the affirmative afction decision. And remembering when my wife and I were dis-invited from the wedding of a couple I had introduced to each other, with the groom telling us (and another couple) that it was because of “space” and they had picked us out because we were such good friends that they knew we’d understand.
At least the couple who disinvited you tried to create plausible deniability, albeit with the condescending bs that “we know you’ll understand.” I hope you later called them out on it and said “what we understand is…”
Oh, they knew that what we understood damn well was that the weenie groom was too insecure to have any long-time male friends of the bride who also dated her years before at the wedding, and that the bride didn’t have the decency or loyalty to tell him to get over it and that snubbing good friends of her to treat his neurosis was unacceptable.
We sent a nice gift, incidentally: Grace insisted on it.
I wanted to send a Red Sox cheese-cutter…
I take it this groom was not a tough enough guy to greet you with a bone crushing handshake, emphasize who he was,, and imply that bad things would happen to you, or outright state that he’d kick your ass if you put a foot wrong.
Hardly.
It’s interesting that everything has gotten so insane and fake that no one can tell what is real anymore. Constantly second guessing everything you see, hear and read is exhausting. I also wondered if this was real when I read it yesterday, but based on people I know who behave exactly like this, I’m not sure it matters if it is real or not. It’s plausible, and that is depressing.
My favorite part of this letter is that her question, the advice she is seeking, isn’t what any rational person might be wondering in this situation: “Wait a second…am I the asshole?” No, her question is “how can I make the actual victim in all this cheerfully accept this abuse?” Amazing.
There is a tiny hint in that last paragraph, though, that somewhere, buried deeply under a suffocating layer of rationalizations, an ethics alarm is ringing. “Please don’t tell me I’m wrong, because deep down I know I am and am just trying to justify my abhorrent behavior. Please validate my petulant bullshit!”
Also, how does one compose a “very nice note” instructing one’s brother to, essentially, “fuck off and send money”?
Senior and Junior Angry’s expectation that Uncle Dollar Bill still send his usual (generous!) gratuity is the most suspect thing in the letter. It’s what makes one, or at least me, wonder if the letter is a set up and not genuine.
Do these advice columnists vett any letters they choose for response.
If the answer is no then the columnist is more concerned about ginning up anger than proffering advice. Therefore, her column should be treated as just that – fear mongering BS
If the answer is yes then the letter is authentic.
Either way it reflects a sad state of affairs
That’s the part that makes me think it’s authentic. It’s too over-the-top to be fake…
These sorts of people really are out there. I have a neighbor who refuses to help one of the older widows who lives on the block with anything at all just because she’s politically kind of conservative. I say “kind of” because she isn’t outspoken about her politics, so I really don’t know what she believes. I interact with her far more than the asshole neighbor does, so I’m certain he has no better idea than I do of what she thinks, and is filling in a lot of blanks with his imagination. This “crime” is enough for him to watch an old lady struggle with her trash cans or a fallen tree limb and not help her.
Very early on in the Trump Derangement outbreak, Mrs. OB met a woman at a cocktail party who virtually bragged she’d divorced her husband because he’d voted for Trump. I’ve been dropped by long time “friends” because I wasn’t sufficiently OUTRAGED by Trump’s even daring to exist.
Not sure if you’re in good company or not, OB. I was also dropped by one-time “friends”. A progressive couple that my wife and I became friends with for a couple of years unfriended us and not the Facebook unfriending kind. The ‘we won’t associate with you’ unfriending. The husband who is in AA explained to me that I wasn’t good for his sobriety or spirituality. Neither my wife nor I drink alcohol and we don’t talk politics or religion so go figure.
There was one time, however, that probably didn’t help cement the relationship. It was shortly before the Trump-Hillary election. We were having dinner with our former friends and two of their adult sons. Mrs. Former Friend asked me if I thought Trump had a chance of winning. I replied I didn’t know but there are plenty of idiots in this world… (pause)…Obama was elected twice. The kids loved the comment. The parents didn’t laugh.
Tom, we have a fourteen-year-old grandson who’s an archconservative! He’s driving my terminally lefty son nuts. Who’d a thunk it? Evidently there is a God, and he has a wicked sense of humor.
Love it!!
Karma can a bitch.
I’ve had the same experience with a terminally-left-wing friend of 20+ years. She knows I’m not a MAGA hat guy, as my libertarian leanings have been on full display for our entire friendship. But by not being apoplectically outraged by Trump’s antics, and pointing out that there are plenty on her side of the aisle who have done as bad or worse things, I’m no longer worthy of contact.
I see it as a blessing, though. Life is too short for relationships with people whose friendship is conditional on agreement on trivial matters. My energy can be spent on other relationships built on true affection and connection, not superficial agreement on bullshit.
Bravo.
Being able to tell someone to go to hell and have him looking forward to the trip takes a certain amount of skill. Being able to tell someone to screw off and send money is something no amount of skill can make nice.
“…..And remembering when my wife and I were dis-invited from the wedding of a couple I had introduced to each other…” Jack, I believe I remember that prior post. Attach the “Link” to that post if you would; I’d like to read it again.
…And good for Uncle Dave. What a stand-up, ethical man. Maybe Uncle Dave should divide up his usual $1,000 give and send to all the prior newlyweds he previously gave such generous gifts to. (I know, I know. Even slight revenge may be sweet, but not ethical).
I think Uncle Dave should spend the money on something extravagant and useless, then send the newlyweds a cheerful note with a photo of what “their” $1000 bought… A stinging lesson in manners and humility is the best wedding gift he could give them at this point.
I think he should send his one large to Black Lives Matter on Angry Junior’s behalf with a copy of the transmittal to the two Angrys.
Or perhaps donate it to a far right politcal campaign in their honor?
Fr. Malachi, a mentor of mine accurately observed “once an asshole always an asshole.” He died before he could add, “unfortunately assholes can reproduce.”
If we’ve reached the point where we can’t tell if this sort of thing is true or not (as with your recent post on whether/when satire is ethical), maybe we should quit worrying about it and just accept these stories as being sort of modern fables. Maybe on this one if we changed the principals to a dog and weasels…
A neighbor of my parents stopped interacting with my parents after being friends for 30 years. She leaves the country often and my parents would keep her dogs at their house for her (as a favor) for decades. They also would often keep the dogs if she just left for the day. All of a sudden, she didn’t want them within 10′ of her (no, literally, she stands inside and will only talk to them through the screen door while they stand in the yard, not on the porch). She just doesn’t feel ‘safe’ around them. She has to kennel the dogs now because none of her Democrat friends will help her.
So, the letter may be a fake, but it isn’t out of the possibility that it is real.
The reason it’s hard to figure out if this was real or fake is because it’s very plausible that something like this would happen. Those of us who interact with today’s young (I’m in my mid-40s, so Im referring to those in their mid-20s to mid-30s) know that many of them may think and act like that. It’s shocking how different young millennials and old GenZ’s are from prior generations. I recall having heated political and social discussions and disagreements with people back in college and early in my opinion, but people of my generation, libs and righties, still had the decency and maturity to appreciate and respect others’ having different views. That does not exist anymore. Even though they pretend not to know what it means, today’s young “progressives” (who are actually authoritarian repressive lefties) are “woke”—can readily feel “unsafe”, and respect and tolerate no one that deviate an inch from their orthodoxy
Ron-in-Chicago,
I think the phenomenon might be a combination of laziness and naïveté.
They likely have not bee exposed to other points of view in any sincere way. They are naive about different points of view. And, those points of view are often presented in a strawman form as evil.
Well, if an ideology is evil, not only can it be rejected out of hand, but those who adhere to it should be shunned. That attitude feeds into a laziness in exploring new things. if you are confident in the righteousness of your own view, and the error of any views that differ with you, you don’t really have to think about things.
-Jut
The one part that makes me question whether or not this is a fake is the part about sending a card and photographs from the wedding to the disinvited Uncle Dave. I have a hard time believing that anyone could be THAT tone-deaf as to not only exclude Uncle Dave from the wedding over politics, but to then grind his face in the fact that he was excluded. That sounds like something you only do if you bear some form of malice toward the person. To exclude someone, grind his face in the exclusion, and then expect a large gift from him nonetheless smacks of people who are either 100% clueless or so blinded by their politics as to lose their common sense.
How do you even word a “nice” non-invitation note? Did the writers not even have the common sense to make up a little white lie about space or expense and cuts having needed to be to be made somewhere? Does it make any sense to tell someone point blank that you are excluding them from a family event because of their politics?
Dear Uncle Dave,
As you’re probably aware, Ellie is getting married to her fiance this coming Labor Day weekend. Unfortunately, as you are also probably aware, your politics do not align with mine or hers, since we consider ourselves very progressive, and you voted for someone whose name I would prefer not to say. As a result, Ellie has decided that she does not feel comfortable in your presence and has asked that yours be one name that gets left off the guest list. We want her special day to go as smoothly as possible and with a minimum of problems or distractions, so this is to let you know that you should not expect to receive an invitation to the wedding. Thank you in advance for understanding.
Your sister,
Anne
P.S. We are hoping that you are mature enough this will not lead to a family breach.
P.P.S. We also hope nor will it lead you to lessen or withhold your gift to the couple starting their lives together, which you have always been most generous about in the past.
How do you then send the pictures?
Dear Dave,
Enclosed please find some pictures of key moments from Ellie’s wedding. I know we had to disinvite you because of politics, but we didn’t want you to feel completely cut out. Wasn’t she a beautiful bride? BTW, how are we doing on their wedding gift? There are still a few things they need for their home office.
I refuse to believe anyone is so clueless that they would write those kind of messages. I also refuse to believe that anyone would turn on their family to that degree over politics.
However, Einstein once said he was only sure of two things being infinite, the stupidity of man and the universe, and he wasn’t sure about the universe.
Oh, the picture thing makes perfect sense to me. Remember, you have to think like a Trump-Deranged person.
(1) Dave should know he has the ‘wrong’ politics.
(2) Dave should understand that his views make his family feel ‘unsafe’ around him.
(3) Dave should still care about his family, so he should want to support her niece in her wedding and new marriage.
(4) Since he can’t be there, they should at least send him pictures so he can still feel somewhat included. He would be awfully disappointed if he didn’t get to see his beloved niece in her wedding dress and the happy couple at the reception. He should understand it is his fault that he can’t be there, but we should at least let him see what he had to miss.
As for the money, remember, Bud Light called their customers ‘fratty’ and ‘out of touch’ and said they need a new type of customer immediately? Despite this, they still expected their core customers to keep sending them money. Remember when Lucasfilm called their fans ‘problematic’ and said their new films wouldn’t be for the fans and were surprised when the fans didn’t give them money? Yeah, same thing.
Oh I remember further back than that, 3 years ago the woke were saying this was the time to create a family breach if your family wouldn’t join you in pushing the Black lives matter agenda hard, and 3 years before that they were saying to create family breaches at Thanksgiving and Christmas because Truuuuuuump.
If I had been in Dave’s position, she would have heard from me one more time when she received the card and photos by return mail